As a new Vanilla player, I'm thinking about the options for long-range, high-burst units for active-turn ARO removal. The options that interest me are Knauf, the Zhayedan HMG, the Azra'il HMG, and the Shakush HMG. I decided to run some numbers. Vs, a linked Karhu Feuerbach Maybe the ultimate ARO in N4. Knauf can't fight it at all - he's 36% to wound vs. 49% to get wounded. His only hope is to get it from outside 32", in which case he's 50% to wound and 33% to get wounded. Worth it only as a desperation play. The Zhayedan is no better - 32% to wound, 46% to get wounded, and doesn't have the option to outrange the Karhu. The Azra'il is 27% to wound, 45% to get wounded, 22% to take two wounds. Also not viable - he's likely to get a few shots at it, especially with a doctor to pick him up, but multiple shots at 27% is still bad. The Shakush is 29% to wound, 41% to get wounded, 17% to get wounded twice. Still pretty much unviable. Conclusion: vanilla Haqq can't shoot at a linked Karhu. If you must do it, the least bad options are to outrange it with Knauf, or throw a Shakush at it and hope to get lucky before you run out of wounds. Vs. a Q-drone with marksmanship Knauf is 47% to wound, 30% to get wounded. Too much risk. But if he outranges it, he's 70% to wound vs. 15% to get wounded. Zhayedan is 25% to wound, 41% to get wounded. Ouch. Azra'il is 20% to wound, 46% to get wounded. Not viable even though it can survive the first wound. Shakush is similar - 23% to wound, 42% to get wounded. Conclusion: the only way for vanilla Haqq to fight a Q-Drone with marksmanship at range is to outrange it with Knauf. Vs. Armand (minelayer profile) Knauf is 59% to wound, 17% to be wounded, 7% to be wounded twice. Zhayedan is 42% to wound, 25% to get wounded. Azra'il is 38% to wound, 24% to get wounded, 6% to get wounded twice. Shakush is 40% to wound, 19% to get wounded. Conclusion: all the options are viable, although the Zhayedan is iffy. Assuming Knauf is supported by a doctor, he's probably the best option against Armand since he has only a 7% risk of death. Azra'il with a doctor has an even lower risk of death, but will take longer to kill Armand. Shakush is comparable to the Azra'il - will take a few orders and might suffer a wound in the process, but will get the job done. Overall, Knauf was already looking good, but the numbers make him look even better than I thought. His downside is that he's flimsy - but against targets that are likely to take him out, the beefier options are also not performing well. I think this probably rules out the Azra'il for me - I would rather take Knauf. The Shakush still has some advantages - Tactical Awareness, ARO potential, 6" move, and a specialist pilot. But it's also a lot more points. Knauf really is looking very good.
Here's one where I think the beefier options might outperform Knauf. Let's see if I'm right: Vs. a Gao-rael in a triad For simplicity, I'm assuming it doesn't have a 'Mate. Knauf is 55% to wound and 36% to wound twice, but 20% to die (because the Gao-rael has shock). Zhayedan is 59% to wound, 11% to die. Azra'il is 55% to wound, 11% to take a wound. Shakush is 57% to wound, 8% to take a wound. Ok yeah, here's where Knauf doesn't look so good. Against a target with MSV and no mimetism, he loses all his advantages. The other options have higher BS and B, and most importantly, the ability to survive bad luck.
Yeap, i faced the same problem. There is nobody who can fight with aro confidently. Mainly i try to kill 1-2 members of link by fiday, after shoot from Asawira or Mukhtar to aro. And yes, i found knauf the most appropriate. As neither Shakush nor Azrail has visor modificators, so you waste orders to win ftf or injury aro. There is Djanbazan and Govad, but i dont believe in them. We really need good HMG platform. That is why HB is much easier to play, imho :)
Let's try this: Vs. a linked Regular sapper Knauf is 57% to wound, 26% to get wounded, 14% to get killed. Zhayedan is 37% to wound, 38% to get wounded. Azra'il is 31% to wound, 38% to get wounded. Shakush is 34% to wound, 29% to get wounded. Seems like against any linked target with mimetism, the Azra'il and Shakush struggle. They'll get the job done, but spend a lot of orders and probably suffer some wounds in the process.
Big picture break. We have lots of Smoke access. Against non-MSV AROs, we can opt not to fight them at all. That includes the Q-Drone and the linked Regular. So let's focus on AROs that have MSV. If the ARO also doesn't have Mimetism, the Azra'il and Shakush are preferable. Knauf gets no benefit from his special Skills, and becomes just a frail B3 gunfighter. The Gao-Rael falls into this category. That leaves targets that have both mimetism and msv - the Karhu, above. None of our options can effectively fight the Karhu. The other AROs we're likely to face in this category are the Kamau, Bagh-Mari, and Frontovik snipers. Am I missing any?
Alright: Vs. linked Kamau We know Knauf can't fight this - same f2f numbers as the Karhu, but no option to outrange it. Can the Shakush use its armor to brute-force it? Shakush is 30% to wound, 31% to get wounded. So it can be done, but it's likely to take three orders and suffer a wound or two in the process. Azra'il will be similar but slightly worse.
Hypothesis: Take lots of smoke and a Shakush. Leave Knauf on the shelf. Against scary AROs without MSV, smoke them and ignore them. Against scary AROs with MSV and no mimetism, kill them with the Shakush. Against scary AROs with both MSV and mimetism, avoid a shootout if at all possible. Use Fidays etc. If you must fight them, budget a lot of orders and use the Shakush.
Thank you for running the numbers. For me, that has always been the fun puzzle part of Vanilla Haqqislam: we cannot brute force premier linked AROs. The faction, even with all the new tools we got in N4, cannot do that. We have to nibble at the edges and circle around these threats. Use the fiday or over-infiltrate a hunzakut to hit the other members of the link. It also feels like the we are moved to use the more risky rules like over-inflitration or combat jump. Or try to limit interaction with the opponent and focus on the mission.
I believe you can count the profiles with marksmanship plus fireteam bonus like grenzer multisnipper or the bolt, as they have mimetism -6, the +3 for ignoring covert it works pretty much as the -3 mimetism when you put the numbers to have the % to wound or to be wounded. Sadly the ods aren't too kind with us, haquisslam players.
Oooh, yeah, Grenzer and Bolts for sure. Against a Bolt, the Shakush is 29% to wound, 32% to take a wound. Marksmanship has a very similar effect to Mimetism (but can't be countered by Knauf's MSV). Orcs, I'm putting in the "block it with smoke" category since they don't have MSV and there's no way I want to fight a linked Orc feuerbach!
What about getting under 8" and kill him? Maybe with a Shotgun AND a mine, just to be sure? Fiday doesn't even need to roll to get in position (out of DZ is normally enough). What about Coordinate n Daylami with panzerfaust? What about infiltrating an Hunzakut and dropping Grenades (launcher involved) on his head? Why are you always trying to fight with the opponent weapon of choice?
I mean, QueensGambit did state alternative routes. But, these numbers are in the assumption that your options are limited, as in, you are forced to take a shootout. And if so, what is the best platform to go brrrr on the enemy's ARO pieces. There are a ton more ways and tactics to deal with linked MSV AROs, but that's not in the spirit of this exercise.
Yup, the purpose is to decide when to take a long-range firefight, and which tools to bring to do it. There are other options, and sometimes they're the best options, but they also have significant downsides, particularly in order expenditure. You need to be able to judge when to use your HMG and when to use your Fiday, Smoke, repeater, etc.
What are your thoughts on Maggie or HMG Janissaries? Do you think the Shakush is best balance of price, durability, and damage potential? Here is hoping we get it next Fall with a TAG box.
I dunno, those are legit ARO problems to deal with but I haven't seen TAGs - which is pretty much *the* reason to take Azrail
That's a nice discussion, I like it. Very reasonable. Still it won't change my mind that taking AzRa'il AP HMG is more interesting than taking some other guys ;) Simply because not all armylists has to be maximized, there's always room for the units we simply like. About taking care of AROs from long range - in N4 I usually have Knauf and Djanbazan HMG and they are my typical problem solvers, the first one to outrange threats and the second one highly dependent on smoke and the lack of MSV on enemy. Still if the odds are very poor it's good to have some skirmisher closer to enemy, to hack them / shoot them on better ranges, kill them in CC or just hide from them or ride to them fast and burn them with Zuleyka. And I have to try Shakush myself, it's definitely interesting. PozdRawiam / Greetings
Good questions. I'm personally fond of the Shakush, but coming from HB, it's been my only reasonable HMG option so I've used it extensively. The other options are new to me. I think the Shakush is about right, damage-wise. A DAM 16 HMG is no joke. As @WiT? says, AP only really matters much against an enemy TAG - I haven't been seeing many of them either, and we have other tools to deal with TAGs. So the Azra'il does look a little like overkill to my eye. The Shakush's extra durability is nice, and so is its 6-2mov and the specialist pilot. But mostly, I'm paying the extra 18 points for Tactical Awareness - beating the order caps is huge. That said, to my eye the Shakush and Azzy are filling the same role - tough HMG and ARO piece. I can definitely see downgrading to the Azzy if you need the 18 points somewhere else. I don't like the Janissary HMG option because the lack of cube is a deal-breaker. For a point less I can have the Azra'il who has a better weapon, more armor, and is basically guaranteed to be doctorable. And Maggie... well, she's so expensive she's her own thing. When I put a Shakush in a list, it's not a Shakush list, it's just a list with a Shakush in it. The other stuff - Fidays, Farzans, Mukhtar, Asawira, Fiddler, whatever - is the important stuff. The Shakush just takes a few long-range shots, provides some AROs, and makes the opponent waste a lot of orders killing it. Whereas if you bring Maggie, you're building your list around Maggie, and she's going to need to do a lot of heavy lifting to earn her points. I got tired of waiting, and am currently painting up a stripped-down Gecko :-)
Hi, I'm totally agree with @QueensGambit said about Maggie and the Shasku, the "small TAG" is barely an expensive HI, so we can put a lot of other things in the list, "maggie" is different. It is the reason why some TAGs come to play and others don't, but comming back to the "main topic": What we are seeing here is not a problem only in haquisslam, we can find it in several vainilla armies, I belive this is the majority of complains about fireteams, but yet, other vainilla can have some other tools (in high burst and medium long range terms) that we in haquisslam we don't have. Even the "lower tech faction" has at least one better shooter than us :) (Ranger, I'm not looking at you hehe). I'm not trying here to take a debate about what we can or not find in other factions The "problem" here is that we reach our limit on BS 12 if we try to face to face any target with mimetism (-3), it doesn't matter what are we using: Djambazan multiespectral visor 2, Zhayedan with marksmanship... and those are "our best", the rest of the gang go to BS11 or 10, so it is always a dangerous thing to get involved in a gunfirefight against pretty much anything that have that skill, but against a 5 member fireteam things only goes worse. It looks fair enough to conclude that "haquisslam" haven't great shooters with high burst/long range weapons to deal against some specifics kind of targets, but taking the time to analyzed which one are the best it is a really good excersice because the other tools we have to deal against them, not will be allways succesful ones, so in time to time we will need a "B" plan (or even a C or D...) :P If I would have to choose only one option between Azrail and Shasku I probably go for the Azrail, because in the mind of the enemies it is dangerous thanks to his cotinuous damage. Yeah, pretty redundant if we think we will not face heavy targets, but against a regular hmg from the shasku pretty much no enemy would doubt to launch his HI armed with another hmg or AP spitifire or whatever, because only in the case of a criticial hit the troup could be put down in ARO time, but against the Azrail it is always "a sensation of fear", if only one dice goes wrong... Don't think if the Azrail is placed in supressive fire. I played in the past few months vainilla, comming from hassasin, same as @QueensGambit, and I have to say that Azrail is almost a "must" in all the list I did use. I usually make a list with djambazan hmg in case I should face to face enemies with a high quantity of mimetism -3 or -6, and other with the Zhayedan instead, for enemies who don't abuse of mimetism. But as I said, azrail it is always in both lists. I understand the reasons behind the choice of the TAG instead of Azrail, the difference between S5 and S6 isn't so great,the higher movment it could be critical in some missions, plus the order and the "push button pilot" and of course it is a little more tough than the HI.
